"Oh. Sorry. You can also take actions you don't want to do. We don't have much translation spell left, we couldn't find food, do you want to try the breastfeeding thing."

"If you...would rather not...I could attempt to - tell Jisa - where to look? ...If I can remember." 

"Do me a favor and stop being Good! The Star-Eyed Goddess is probably trying to kill us!"

"What does that– all right." 

Jisa is SO CURIOUS what Carissa turning into someone who's just had a baby will look like. She leans in to watch. 

She goes for her cousin's wet-nurse, who is plump and has enormous breasts and a habit of teaching babies manners by flicking them in the ear with her sharp nails. 

The communication spell expires. She lifts her top and gestures at Leareth impatiently.

Woooooow! 

Leareth nods, and then spends a few seconds attempting to lever himself into a position where he can even reach to put his mouth there. It's hard, mostly because he's very dizzy. 

...Breastfeeding, it turns out, is also surprisingly hard. And frustrating. How do babies just DO this. 

Jisa is so tempted to ask if she can have a go too - there's another breast right there! - but Carissa looks grumpy enough about this already, so she doesn't. 

Leareth being conscious is good, in terms of how violently they get taken into custody by his people. She tries to support his neck usefully and sits there feeling - no, no feelings. 

Possibly this would be a less incredibly annoying and inconvenient way of consuming fluids if Leareth were any less exhausted and headachy. He keeps at it anyway - he doesn't know when Nayoki will manage to identify his location clearly enough for a Gate - but he isn't happy about it. 

Jisa can tell that Carissa is stressed out enough already, and she manages not to interrupt.

For a while.

After a couple of minutes she is BORED and also WORRIED. 

"We should ask his people to send my papa a message," she says. "So he doesn't worry about whether I'm lost." 

What. 

Leareth swallows his current mouthful of breast milk and lets go, tilting his head back and -

- damn it, right, no translation spell. 

He tries to gesture in Jisa's direction with just his eyes and then makes a face. It's by far the most expressive expression that Carissa has ever seen on him, incredulous and worried and frustrated and confused. 

She wanted to come along, Carissa thinks at him. Raced in while I was dragging you across. You can always send her back if you don't want a hostage. 

It does sort of make a peaceful resolution with Valdemar less likely but Carissa hates Valdemar and so doesn't care about that as much as Leareth probably does.

Leareth stares blankly at her for a few seconds before he realizes that she's probably trying to think at him, and - reluctantly - opens his Thoughtsensing. 

OW. He grimaces despite his best efforts. 

- asking Jisa to translate between them is probably not a good solution to this problem, for the obvious reasons. 

Jisa is even more concerned! 

"...Is me having come to help you take care of Leareth make there be a war? I don't want there to be a war!" 

Leareth clears his throat again. "Jisa, she cannot -" 

Jisa has just gathered for herself that Carissa can't understand her, by dint of reading Carissa's thoughts. 

She repeats herself in Mindspeech. 

I think probably your dad will be pretty upset you're with us. I don't know if he'll start a war about it because I don't know much about him, and I don't think he knows where to attack. Leareth can tell you about his plans himself - somewhat sternly, to Leareth.

Leareth winces at the effort of picking this up from Thoughtsensing. It's a relief that he won't need to do that with Jisa - she speaks Valdemaran - but he's also struggling to parse what Carissa means by telling Jisa about his plans. Presumably not his larger overarching plans? Most of them aren't eight-year-old friendly at all! 

"My people should - pick us up soon," he says to Jisa. "I - think we ought send you - back to Haven." 

"But I didn't finish fixing everything with the block! I guess I could do more now..." 

"I am fine for the moment." Wow, Leareth does not at ALL want Jisa poking around any more in his head. "Nayoki - my second in command - is a Mindhealer also." 

"Ooh! Can I meet her? Maybe she's a better teacher than Melody. Melody gets impatient a lot." 

Damn it, what is he even supposed to say to the small child about that. "...She is very busy. I think she would not have time to be a teacher as well." 

"Oh." Jisa looks disappointed, for a moment, before she brightens and turns back to Carissa. :Do you want me to fix your blocks now that I have time?: